AI-Driven Deliberation for Climate Adaptation Measures

Project summary

Public misconceptions and misunderstandings about climate risk and adaptation can pose significant barriers to developing climate adaptation measures. Deliberative Polling is a method that helps the public to form and revise opinions, and to recognize misinformation. While Deliberative Polling® has been conducted hundreds of times and in 50+ countries, it currently can only be run by a handful of experts on campus. To support public discourse on climate adaptation globally, we are exploring how to transform this tool into a user-friendly, “plug and play” platform with the support of the Sustainability Accelerator at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Together with external partners, our team is extending the functionalities of the AI-assisted Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, designed based on the method of Deliberative Polling® to create a tool that cities and communities worldwide can easily implement for their regional climate adaptation challenges. We are focusing on affordable, energy-efficient housing as our test case for scaling this approach. There are no states in the U.S. with an adequate supply of affordable climate-resilient rental housing. The energy burden on low-income household is three times that of non-low-income households. Public opposition to such housing includes concerns about neighborhood impacts and misconceptions regarding energy-efficient designs.